Painting the town Bollywood

Mumbai is the home of Bollywood, but it's an artist from Haryana who is making the city proudly display its filmi identity. 

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RANJIT DAHIYA, founder of Bollywood Art Project

I started off my career by whitewashing walls back home in Haryana after dropping out of school in Class 11. Once, I was asked to paint Goddess Saraswati on the walls of a school. That’s when I first realised my potential and considered painting murals for a living. 

I opened my own shop and took up small painting jobs for a while, moving about with buckets of paint on my bicycle. But I had no formal training. A friend suggested taking up a fine arts course. I read up on it and was determined to do the course, but the minimum requirement was clearing Class 12. So I went back to school and completed Class 12 before going on to complete a fine arts course in Chandigarh.

The Bollywood Art Project began with a mural of Rajesh Khanna, Bollywood's first superstar.

Dahiya says "old and boring" walls are his favourite canvas.

But then my future became a question mark once again. I didn’t know what to do next. That’s when I heard about the National Institute of Design. I didn’t get in straight away. Having studied in Hindi medium schools throughout, I was not comfortable in English and found it difficult to answer the questions in the entrance exam. I was advised to drop the idea of doing the course, but I was resolute. I took a year off just to learn English. I used to read the newspaper aloud every morning just to improve my command of the language. I got in with ease at the second attempt. 

Eight years ago, I moved to Mumbai. Mumbai is the city of Bollywood. But when I first came to the city, there wasn’t anything to make you feel like this was the home of the Hindi film industry. I wanted to liven up the city’s walls with colourful street art, to identify Mumbai by its love for Bollywood.

 From pencil to portrait: Mughal-e-Azam (1960) comes to life.

In 2012, I started the Bollywood Art Project to celebrate 100 years of Bollywood. I painted the first mural in the suburb of Bandra, home to Bollywood stars such as Dilip Kumar, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Rishi Kapoor, among others. Today, huge murals of some of Bollywood’s greatest films and icons including Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan adorn the walls of Bandra. 

Sometimes a random building brings to a mind an image I could paint on it. On other occasions, when I think of a poster or a scene from a Bollywood movie, I search for a building on which to paint it. 

Earlier, I used to go around seeking permission to paint my murals. Now, I have Bollywood fans coming up to me with requests to paints the walls of their homes and offices. I even painted a mural of Madhubala in the US recently, and have also done projects in Chennai and Delhi. 

He recently did a Madhubala mural at the US home of a Bollywood fan. 

With Amitabh Bachchan in the flesh. In the background is Dahiya's mural of Dadasaheb Phalke, recognised as the Father of Indian Cinema.

The only problem is when people ask for payment. This project is not about money or credit - it’s entirely about the satisfaction I get from making Mumbai as Bollywood for people as possible.

I have big plans for the Bollywood Art Project. My dream is to paint the largest mural in the world and I have already started looking for the perfect canvas.

AS TOLD TO JISHA UNNI

Capturing Amitabh Bachchan's angry young man in Deewar (1975)